


You should wear a Flower Crown

by uraniafromspace



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Poetic, Zutara Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uraniafromspace/pseuds/uraniafromspace
Summary: They sometimes steal glances when no one is around.It´s not often, but it happens. His eyes land over her figure, not more than three seconds at a time. On the last one, she locks his gaze on hers and gazes back.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 231
Collections: Zutara Month 2020





	You should wear a Flower Crown

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of poetic, cause I was reading Rupi Kaur yesterday. Contribution for the Zutara Month 2020, Quarantine Edition.

They sometimes steal glances when no one is around.

It´s not often, but it happens. His eyes land over her figure, not more than three seconds at a time. On the last one, she locks his gaze on hers and gazes back.

Her and Aang are visiting the Fire Nation for a peace negotiation, and Zuko has been too busy these days, but between a meeting with his Council and an encounter with the Foreign Exchange Minister of the Earth Kingdom, he organizes a quick tea with his friends.

His hands go over hers when he hands her a teacup, and it might be that she wants to see more in that gesture than there really is, but his touch doesn’t seem that unintentional. It’s not a touch that lingers. It’s fast, and she could have passed it as a mere casualty if his foot didn’t carefully nudge hers under the table.

She lets their feet touch for a moment before she withdraws.

Her hand brushes his when she hands him the sugar.

It’s the Annual Conference of the Nations.

He tries to look interested, even though she sees the bags under his eyes, how his shoulders slump in fatigue.

When Aang makes his speech about what to do with the old Air Temples, Katara studies him. Zuko realizes it and she quirks an eyebrow.

_What happened._

He scowls, she smiles at his gesture and he smiles back, for a little over too long.

Applause brings them back. Aang is back to sitting and she congratulates him, squeezing his hand under the table.

Zuko is already paying attention again to what King Kuei is saying, and she can’t capture his attention anymore for the rest of the meeting.

There’s a party at the end of the Conference.

She’s dancing with Sokka, when he appears. (He’s so much taller than she remembers).

He asks for a dance. She says yes. Her brother leaves.

His hand grabs her waist, firm and calloused. They are honest hands, hands that reveal the person he’s become, that are at once all the things that have brought him shame, though she feels only pride for them, when she thinks about who he was, and who he is.

Her arms embrace his neck.

His eyes say too much (would have told a story, if they could). The golden color makes her breathless for a moment and she is never able to stop noticing how beautiful they are (both in the same measure).

He spins her twice through the ballroom, before they decide that much more than that wouldn’t be appropriate.

She puts her hand on his arm,

(It’s that simple. The gesture makes her blush when she is reminded of that slip up).

He sits beside her in a meeting, and she can feel his shoulders next to hers.

The distance that separates them leaves her calmer than the closeness to her boyfriend was never able to do.

( _I’m sorry, Aang_ , she says after that, and his tears carry with them a part of her heart).

The ice of the Water Tribes is still as cold as she remembers, and colder still.

Time passes and the time heals.

But she has more to offer than to remain seated with the people she loves.

Katara travels alone through the world for the first time. She changes her name at every port, makes new friends in small villages, adopts a cat owl during her expeditions through the Earth Kingdom, wanders with strangers through the roads, not fearing anything other than the unknown and the loneliness, helps orphans of the war and earns her coin by selling her healing abilities.

It’s a new experience, that makes her remember the old times.

She feels like a new person when she returns home.

It doesn’t fit her to be stuck anymore. Nevertheless, she waits.

Another post-war reunion.

Aang doesn’t drive his gaze her way.

Zuko approaches her at the end.

_We’re going to make a new health system_ , he says. (What he doesn’t say: _there are only children and elders, we’re about to collapse_ , she had seen the damages with her own eyes). _I thought you might like to help._

She leaves on the boat with him at dawn.

It’s not how she thinks it would be. It’s hard and tiresome and ungrateful, more bureaucratic than hands on, but she knows the people’s needs, understands more of healing than she does of war (even though she had fought and would still keep fighting for her right to fight).

Zuko helps her sometimes. He sits by her side at the end of their days and brews tea. It doesn’t taste good, but the activity seems to be therapeutic, so she drinks it until the last drop.

They talk about their days during that time and he always makes sure to listen when she speaks.

She invades his office, one day, sits in one of his chairs with her papers, making plans, revising and organizing. They spend a long time in silence.

The birds chirp outside.

If she stops to listen, she can almost hear what they have to say.

She mentions how she likes wild flowers and there’s a vase with them at her bedside table when she lays down that night, and all the others that follow.

It’s winter, though it doesn’t make a lot of difference in the Fire Nation. At home, she would have been with Gran Gran, sewing inside of their igloo. It’s a comforting activity that brings her peace, but she prefers what she’s doing now, feels good and useful and happy and fulfilled doing what she believes in, but there’s still much more to be done.

Six months later, all of the planning has been concluded. They walk on the Market of Caldera, observing the crowd, and there are so many children running through the streets they lose count.

_We have to do something about all of those parentless children,_ Zuko mentions.

_We could…_ she begins, and they don’t end that conversations for three months more.

Her fingers trace the contours of the scar, the skin underneath her fingertips like the sea.

She sails through his face with her hands when he lets her.

_We’re having trouble with our aqueducts._

She is in the city’s water tank analyzing the pipes ten minutes later.

In the ball they throw for the Earth Kingdom dignitaries, they dance together the whole evening.

When they stop, the servants stacking up the chairs and cleaning the floor, she leans on his chest, because they are young and full of life and there is no war that can rip the happiness away from them and they don’t owe anything to anyone.

The other day, Zuko’s servants get into his chambers and find her under his sheets.

He gives her flowers, and she puts them in her hair, weaving the locks with the stems. He tells her there is nothing in the world more beautiful and she believes, because he listens when she talks and gives her the time he doesn’t have, and even though he has a whole nation under his command, this is the most precious thing he can offer her.

He takes his crown off his head and places it upon hers, over the fire lilies.

_You look so much better with a flower crown, but a golden one fits you too._

In the spring, the crown he gives her has golden lilies.

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I do this? Remains unclear. I guess I just wanted to write something nice and cute, so there it is. Please let me know if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes, or if anything is kind of hard to get, since I decided to write this in my mother language then translate it to English. (Especially on/at/in, like, I dont get it and there's probably something wrong in there).  
> Hope you enjoyed it! I love reviews.  
> Also, stay at home where it's safe and virus-free, kids.


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